Archive for November, 2008

Trust me when I tell you that you dudes don’t miss i.C. movies as much as we do. I plan to attack the iNternets Celebrities site with a renewed vigor as soon as I get back to NYC. All this other shit I have been doing is fun, but I really believe the i.C.’s can make the world a better place.

There have been a lot of folks showing us love and prodding us to get back to doing what we love to do. Allow me to take a minute to acknowledge some folks that stay in our corner.

KHAL @ RockThe Dub supports DP and i.C. all day every day. Give him a shout. There’s is no one on the internets that will respond to an e-mail faster than Khal.

MHB @ Desedo Films always sends me the fresh links to opportunities in the advertising game. “One of the days, one of these days…” – Ralph Kramden

Rooftop Films @ IFC.com has been real supportive of the i.C. movement by showing our films to their audiences during all kinds of different screenings. They find a way to get us into their programming.

And all of the iNternets Celebrities producers that have put their monies where OUR mouths are. You folks believe in our expressions in a very real way especially when we have an economy that is so…

Y’all already know.

Stay tuned in to the movement. We will pick up the pace in a few and get some new joints up on the YouTubes. In the meantime and in between time why don’t you take a look at a few of my i.C. related projects.

During the summer I attended a conference called InterestingNY where a few geeked out folks delivered small sermons about who they were and the shit they knew some shit about. I decided to speak about the bodega. Hilarity ensued. I also used the podium as a chance to kick some real shit to the congregation. They have a video of me speaking. Here it is if you feel like watching. Peace.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart executives enjoy all the free publicity. No press is bad press on Black Friday.

I have to be honest and telll y’all that I personally know the clientele that shop at this Wal-Mart. This was some negro nonsense of the worst kind. Black folks are normally the conscience of America. The moral compass some call it. I you don’t know, now you know America is fucked the fuck up party people.

When folks trample someone to go shopping and then damn near riot when the store is closed because their actions made it a murder scene we have lost our way. This was Wal-Mart. Not Hammacher Schlemmer. Not Gucci. Not Christian Dior. Not Bloomingdale’s. Not even fucking Marshall’s (just copped me a sick little Polo R.L. knit on clearance – holla).

This wasn’t just a Black Friday for some poor man’s family, this was a Savage Sambo Shopper Nigger Nonsense Black Bullshit Friday. Yeah, I said it.

I just got off the G-chat with the homey UnderWriter. He and his lady went out to the flicks so he could take his mind away from the blood fued going down tonight in Alabama. The Crimson Tide just played against their intra-state rivals, the Tigers from Auburn. The Tide rolled over the Tigers so thankfully the 92,000 people dressed in red didn’t set the city on fire. Or maybe they did anyway.

To understand the culture around college football in Alabama one needs to look out west to the acrimonious relationship that the Bloods and Crips have with each other. There is at least one person in Tuscaloosa who wore his Auburn jersey and is now twisted into a bloody pulp on the shoulder of I-359. Sadly, in this mountain county Auburn sounds too much like Obama.

Here in Atlanta the natives are wrapped up in their own Hatfield-McCoy tilt called the Georgia vs. Georgia Tech game. Atlanta is a little more gentil though. I chilled in the old Fat Tuesdays in the Underground with my homies Fats and Brooklyn Mike while we threw down a couple of rounds of Rocket Fuel 180. I chatted up the foxy barkeep who was surprisingly a Bennett grad and not Spelman as I assumed.

Georgia Tech pulled out the upset win on a last minute field goal. No one got too much excited or depressed. Atlantans are a little too cool for this college football shit since Atlanta does have its own professional NFL team. I appreciate those ‘Bama bamas who put on their dark red sweatshirts and swallow a fifth of J.D. before they hit the streets. For those folks GLEN COFFEE will be hoisting that Heisman trophy on Paul Bryant Drive.

I went looking for some pieces from the old CraftWerk Kings. These two graff artists called Gnome and Gemini were huge influences on my graff style. Not just my lettering and my characters which these dudes were absolutely top shelf, but my color blending too.

I couldn’t connect to Gnome or Gem yet but I did come up on a cat named Sphere from B.K. that rolled with them dudes.

Me and one of my bombing partners Arch II were drinking the other night and we talked about doing a wall burner with some racked cans. I doubt I will steal cans though since I’m closer to 40y.o. than 14. I would be down to put up one last burner.

And videotape the experience, of course.

Sphere isn’t bombing the subways any longer. He is on the west coast working on his music element right now. You can still call him SFear.

By now most of you have heard the story of JOHN HANSON who is pictured on the back of the $2 dollar bill. HANSON has often been cited as the first United States president since Congress had been newly formed and the Articles of the Confederation had just been drafted prior to his presiding over the office.

The other myth bandied about regarding HANSON is that he was a bit niggy. You know, slightly jiggy. Exactly like our current president-elect who is also slightly lightly niggy. If we are to believe the internets rumors regarding JOHN HANSON then BARACK OBAMA would not be our first almost jig president which could have a crippling effect on the OBAMA economic stimulus plan which I believe is to allow everyone to sell buttons and t-shirts with his likeness at street fairs.

To throw even more confusion into the Black president argument is the news that there may have been at least a half dozen other presidents who have had ‘one drop‘ in their bloodlines. The list includes THOMAS JEFFERSON, ANDREW JACKSON, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, WARREN HARDING, CALVIN COOLIDGE and DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER. There is a ring of truth to this rumor and I decided to examine these presidents for myself to see if I could determine their ethnicity for all posterity.

THOMAS JEFFERSON
We all know that THOMAS JEFFERSON kept time with a Black chick but so did that underwear model who dropped off inside of HALLE BERRY’s uterus. The real proof of Blackness to me is whether or not this president has a hardbody nickname and whether or not he hates Black people.

No one has better nicknames than Black people, and no one hates Black people as much as other Black people.

Nickname: T-Jay

Hate for Blacks: High. JEFFERSON decried, “[t]he amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent.” All the while JEFFERSON dropped off several loads in a slave named SALLY HEMMINGS who may have been the half sister of his wife yet he never publicly acknowledged his offspring.

ANDREW JACKSON
I’m not really surprised that ANDREW JACKSON was Black. There is a high school in Queens bearing his namesake that even Black kids are fearful to attend. I think that is JACKSON exerting his influence from the grave.

Nickname: A-Jax

Hate for Blacks: Meh. A-Jax was a nickname befitting this president since he was a god of war. Instead of placing his foot deep in the asses of the African chattel, JACKSON was too busy slaughtering the native Americans. Ever heard of the ‘Trail Of Tears’? That was JACKSON’s version of the Iraq War ‘Shock and Awe’.

Verdict: JACKSON was a slave holder because it made him rich, not because he hated himself. Not jiggy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The fact that ABRAHAM LINCOLN freed the slaves should be proof of his lack of niggyness. Yes, his wife looks somewhat ethnic. That is more on the account of the hardscrabble life that people lived in those times. If you spent the entire day outside of the house farming you would look like her too.

There were those rumors that LINCOLN might have been a DL brother.

Nickname: Link

Hate for Blacks: Meh. Just like BARACK OBAMA, the Blacks put LINCOLN into office. Not by voting though, but by being a political pitfall. Freeing slaves in 1858 = raising taxes on the rich in 2008.

Verdict: LINCOLN was the prototype white liberal who only knew one Black dude. The guy that shined his shoes.

WARREN HARDING
WARREN HARDING wasn’t a player but he definitely crushed a lot. He had several extra-marital affairs during his career in politricks. With my sincerest apologies to TONI MORRISON, MAYA ANGELOU and B.E.T.’s BOB JOHNSON, but BILL CLINTON fails because cheating on your wife doesn’t make you a Black man.

Hate for Blacks: High. HARDING denied his family in order to get elected into the presidency.

Verdict: HARDING died of a heart attack at the age of 57. He was blacker than Black.

CALVIN COOLIDGE
Right on the heels of the fateful demise of Warren G we have another could be Black president. I remember this president mostly for the alcoholic beverage that used his namesake I enjoyed in my early teens. Good times.

COOLIDGE presided over a government that turned its back to the machinations of greedy businessmen and ended up putting America into the Great Depression.

Nickname: Cool Cal

Hate for Blacks: Meh. Cash ruled everything around him (no Wu-Tang on the hook).

Verdict: CALVIN COOLIDGE may have had cool in his name but his presidency was like school on Saturday night. No class. And definitely nah jiggy.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Despite all the difficulties that Blacks were having stateside in this country EISENHOWER’s presidency was still an unprecedented period of capitalistic growth for America. Since this drop isn’t about America’s economic growth, but her spiritual ascension I should also note that EISENHOWER did sign the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 into law. These two(2) laws were enacted to protect the voting rights of all citizens.

Verdict: Ice D wasn’t Black nor was he actually white. He was a military man which is some kind of greyish olive green. While EISENHOWER may not have been as progressive as he could have been with regards to civil rights of African Americans he did speak out against the burgeoning military-industrial copmplex. Not enough to get his ass merc’ked like KENNEDY, but enough.